ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA announces today the 1st leg of dates on their "ONE SIZE FITS ALL" 40th Anniversary tour. Entering into it’s 10th year of touring, the Grammy Award Winning band will perform the 1975 Frank Zappa record, “One Size Fits All”, as part of the evening’s show, along with a mix of other Zappa songs covering all eras. The tour features stops in new cities like Athens, GA, Oklahoma City, OK, and San Antonio, TX, along with the band’s first ever show at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, MA. As usual, Dweezil will be doing daytime Masterclasses on most stops of the tour.

I'm spinning Tom Waits' "Mule Variations" while typing.What a great album this is.The first track, 'Big In Japan', features special guests Brain Mantia, Les Claypool and Larry Lalonde next to Tom Waits and veteran Ralph Carney.Beautiful.
Data has been added to the United Mutations Archives.

"Don't Touch", the live album The Tubes that I mentioned a couple of months ago, is out.
Recorded in concert in San Francisco in 1976, it includes their version of Captain Beefheart's 'Gimme Dat Harp Boy'.

About four years ago, Antwerp-based rock band the Flying Horseman released their first album. It's the playground of composer, guitar player and vocalist Bert Dockx (Dans Dans).
Dark, hypnotizing blues.

Here's the opening track from "Wild Eyes", performed live on a session for Belgian national radio.

If someone would ask me, I'd probably say that you have three options.
If you don't know dEUS, you need to hear "Selected Songs", the celebration of their 20th anniversary.
The second option is a far more pleasant one: buy the seven albums that dEUS has released the last 20 years. You won't just be able to listen to the tracks that made it to this compilation, but lots and lots more.
The final option combines the two previous ones. You already have the seven dEUS albums, and you still think that you need to hear this compilation. Well, good for you. According to my psychiatrist there's nothing wrong with that. It's a bit weird (and I'm paraphrasing here) but not harmful.

from the MVD website:Holding up the underground since 1972, The Residents celebrate four decades of unbridled creativity with "The Wonder of Weird," their 40th anniversary tour. This album, "Marching to the See," collects the musical highlights from that tour. Having recently come out as Randy, Chuck and Bob after years of anonymity, the group now presents itself in concert as the ultimate offbeat power trio, pared down to guitar, keyboards and vocals. Shrugging its collective shoulders, the band re-interprets and devours its classic material like a hungry horse inhaling hay, while still stumbling along at full speed. Sex, shrugs and anti-rock'n roll - it's all there in The Residents' "Marching to the See."

Monday, November 24, 2014

Dans Dans did a concert at jazz club 'De Singer' last Friday.
The trio with Bert Dockx on guitar, Fred Lyenn Jacques on bass and Steve Cassiers on drums, played a very impressive set.
A fine mixture of melodic jazz, rock and avant garde.

It's quite impressive to see (and hear) the sounds that Bert Dockx gets out of his guitar (a semi acoustic George Benson signature Ibanez). Just take a look the gear that he uses...

The trio is promoting their latest album, "3".
I brought it home after the concert, and I've been playing it at least two times each day.
From the first seconds, you get the typical and familiar sound that is Dans Dans.
8 compositions, three of which were written by Frederic Lyenn Jacques, three by Bert Dockx, one by Stelios Chrisinis and one by Duke Ellington.Highly recommended.

Recorded in concert around 1976 and 1977, "A Quiet Place In The Universe" shows Sun Ra & His Arkestra in great shape.Released by the Leo Records label in 1994.
Data added to the United Mutations Archive in 2014.

Jonathan Badger is a composer and performer based in Baltimore, Maryland. Formally trained as a classical guitarist, he went on to study music theory and composition at Duke University and arranged and composed music for theatre and dance. He then studied in Guitar Craft, a guitar school founded and guided by Robert Fripp of King Crimson.

He has traveled extensively, performing his riveting style of “guitaristic” electronic music, processing guitar through an assortment of customized software and hardware - folding and weaving signals together into complex patterns of interlaced rhythm, harmony and texture.

The music on "Verse" is fascinating.
Beautiful melodies are embedded in nice soundscapes.

"Panoram Of American Piano Music" is a 4CD collection of pieces that Yvar Mikhashoff performed on the grand piano. It's his unique perspective on trends in American piano music from the last one hundred years.
This collection is enormous. Both in quantity as in quality.62 works, 48 composers, 4 hours and 34 minutes.John Cage, Morton Feldman, Lou Harrison, Conlon Nancarrow,...
Plus Yvar's performance of Frank Zappa's 'Piano Introduction To 'Little House I Used To Live In' '.

I saw Stefano Bollani and his band in concert a couple of years ago. Performing Zappa. They played six or seven clubs in Italy and one in Belgium. The Belgium club was located in Antwerp and was called 'De Roma'.
I'm still wondering if the promotor had booked the gig at 'De Roma' because he thought that it was in Italy as well...

Anyway, I thought it was about two years ago, but the booklet says that Stefano's "Sheik Yer Zappa" tour took place in 2011 already.
Stefano Bollani on piano, the fabulous Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, Josh Roseman on trombone, Larry Grenadier on double bass, and the fascinating Jim Black on drums.

And now there's the album. Nine compositions, six of which were written by Frank Zappa.Recorded on the 2011 tour.
Fabulous.

Earlier this week, I received the recently released "Roman De La Rose (A Pink Romance)", a Charles Bobuck contraption.

I was already middle-aged when I first saw him in a cafe near the beach in Cassis. I had wrapped a Residents tour and the South of France seemed an inviting break. I inquired in French if I could join him. He smiled in English. The next day we hired a small boat to a callanque and drank white wine. In time we married and grew old together. I remember those days, and nights, and it goes like this.
-- Charles Bobuck

"Roman de la Rose" or "Romance of the Rose" is a medieval French poem about courtly love.Is Charles Bobuck showing his romantic side?

"Boot & Berg" (boat & iceberg) premiered in Antwerp on April 14, 2012.100 years after the Titanic disaster.

Written by Peter Vermeersch and performed by Flat Earth Society plus Josse De Pauw (reciter) and Rolande Van Der Paal (soprano).The play tells the story of the Titanic and the iceberg. How they were made for each other. How they longed for each other.The tale ends with the iceberg that melts. Another unthinkable, unimaginable event...

A great story and beautiful music.

"Boot & Berg" has been released by Igloo Records both as a seperate album and as part of the FES XLS box (two new Flat Earth Society albums and one X-Legged Sally compilation album).

About three weeks ago, Markus Stauss' Fazzul Music label released a new (and excellent) Zauss album. The Zauss project has Markus collaborating with guitar player Francesco Zago. The album is called "Diafonia Leitmotiv Waves" and it's the fourth Zauss album to date. You definitely need to check it out.

But there's more, as the Fazzul record label lets us become acquainted with Bird Stauss and his Art Companions (or Vogel Stauss und seine Art Genossen as they're called in the German language), the Art Companions being Richard Koch on trumpet and Rémy Sträuli on drums and weird background keyboards noises."En Route" sounds very fresh and open. Composed, and yet with a lot of space for improvisations.
As Markus Stauss added : "(it sounds) almost 'happy' compared to other Fazzul productions."

I'm excited to announce that today I am officially "breaking ground" on my new album. I begin in the studio today with engineer co-producer Joe Baressi (Queens Of The Stone Age, Tool) recording the basic tracks for my first solo record in 10 years.
I have decided to partner with Pledge Music for the release of my new record. I've made a video which chronicles the events leading up to this event.
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/dweezilzappa

Because of this partnership there is now a fantastic way for any folks out there who are interested in taking part with me on this musical journey. I will be able to offer everyone an unprecedented look inside my creative process, what instruments are being used and many other studio details of note.
With Pledge Music you can be a fly on the wall throughout the making of my new record if you like. You'll be able to receive weekly updates and unique opportunities to get involved in the record in various ways.

This record is a collection of songs and a few instrumentals. It is going to be filled with diversity and will most definitely be a departure from anything I have ever done. Undoubtedly there will be a few surprises along the way too!

For the last decade I have been working on developing new guitar skills and blazing a new trail for myself. Along the way I have worked hard to fuse unusual musical influences within my playing. I've always been fascinated by the sound of Arabic and Indian music as well as Balkan rhythms and melodies. Check out the extra 1/4 tone fretted Stratocaster!

Now it's time to see where those influences take me as a musician and songwriter. Accompanying me on this new musical project are my Zappa Plays Zappa band members, Scheila Gonzales, Kurt Morgan, Ryan Brown, Ben Thomas and Chris Norton.

In recent years, various soloists of the Ensemble Modern are getting the opportunity to put together an album of EM recordings.
These recordings are collected and released on a Super Audio CDs.Trombone player Uwe Dierksen's selection includes the ensemble's version of Frank Zappa's 'Revised Music For Low Budget Orchestra'.From the "Greggery Peccary and Other Pursuasions" album.

The United Mutations Archives tell me that Belgian national radio BRT1 did a broadcast around 1991 of Yvar Mikhashoff performing Frank Zappa's 'Piano Introduction To Little House I Used To Live In'.
I don't know the source for the 1991 broadcast, but I do know that Yvar Mikhashoff's rendition of this Zappa composition can be found on the recently released "Panorama Of American Piano Music" 4CD-set.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Each and every year, the Zappanale festival ends with a so-called 'Good-Bye Session'. Musicians from different bands gather on the main stage and jam a bit, performing Frank Zappa tunes.
Always unrehearsed and a bit sloppy, but a good habit nonetheless.

This year, The Wilmington School Of Rock took the stage at the start of the Good-Bye Session, later to be joined or to relieved by members of The Muffin Men, Max Kutner (of The Grandmothers), Eric Klerks (of The Magic Band) and Denny Walley (of Zappa's Mothers and Captain Beefheart), to name a few.

The show got recorded and was made available on DVDR in a very limited quantity (about 20 copies) shortly after the concert.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Solar Records released this compilation album about two years ago. Two classic Sun Ra albums on one shiny disc. And there was enough space to include a bonus track from the "Super Sonic Jazz" session: an alternate take from 'Medicine For A Nightmare'.

Data has been added to the Sun Ra discography over at the United Mutations Archives.